LetsVenture and Keiretsu Forum also participated in the seed funding round
Venture Catalysts, India’s first, largest and pioneering integrated incubator and accelerator platform, has invested an undisclosed amount in The Money Club – India’s first artificially intelligent chit fund cashier in the form of a mobile app. Some of the key investors included Dhruv Agarwala, CEO at Proptiger.com; Bharat Jaisinghni, Director-Polycab Wires; Tushar Singh, Dominor Investments; veteran technologist, Dr. Aloknath De. LetsVenture & Keiretsu Forum also participated in the seed funding round.
Founded by IIT KGP alumni Manuraj Jain and Surajit Raj, The Money Club has democratized the age-old concept of chit funds. It leverages advanced machine learning algorithms to bring transparency into online money club groups. The company effectively underwrites high frequency, micro pooling of funds by studying user behaviours. The platform continuously identifies unique traits that are fed into their algorithms to underwrite users’ moneyclubbing limits.
One of the main advantages offered by The Money Club is that a user doesn’t need to form his own group. He can just join the one provided on the platform. Moreover, since it is a mobile application, there are no physical meetings required. When it comes to safety, all the transactions are digital and can be tracked on the app.
Some of the other features of The Money Club are users get rewarded for good behaviour by getting access to bigger pooled amounts, the entire process is transparent, and the credit risk of every user is based on his behaviour on the platform. The algorithms dynamically monitor the behaviour of every user as they keep transacting on the platform. Only users who have a good track record are taken to bigger clubs going forward. The verification process to join The Money Club 100% online, thereby minimizing the hassle of heavy documentation.
Speaking on the investment, Dr Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, President and Co-founder, Venture Catalysts, commented, “While chit fund is not a new concept, The Money Club has added a fresh twist to it. According to industry data, chit fund users are often subjected to fraud by the cashiers, losing their hard-earned money because of their opaque and fraudulent practices. With its unique approach and technological expertise, The Money Club is not only addressing this problem but also enabling easier access to this saving based financial product.”
Speaking on the funding, Manuraj Jain, Founder and CEO, The Money Club: " Money Club is propelling Digital India's mission to get the $50bn unregistered money pooling market online. We deliver financial services to India's lower middle class,which typically have been marginalised in the current financial system. We have built the worlds 1st artificially intelligent ROSCA cashier to address the problem of fraud in this industry.
With our investors support we should become the largest digital player in this market in the next 5-7 years"
Speaking on investment, Denny Kurien, Keiretsu Forum, India Head: “We are happy to back Money Club which clearly has the opportunity to become an early mover in the chit fund industry that may see significant disruption with the introduction of technology,” said Denny Kurien, President of Keiretsu Forum, a U.S-based angel investor network with significant presence in India.
“This is a market that has existed for years, but was crying out for technology. Covid will speed up the shift to digital as already seen in the last few months,” he said.
Speaking on funding, Sunitha KR, Director, LetsVenture: "Chit funds are traditionally how Indians have saved money for many years. The Money Club is organising this market and bringing in transparency that is very crucial. By using technology to route money through banking channels, we see this becoming a very scalable business. The experience and background of the founders was a big plus for angel investors on our platform who backed The Money Club."
The user onboarding on The Money Club is quite simple. Once a user fills up a form containing his personal details, like name, contact number, location, occupation, organisation, monthly salary etc, The Money Club will send him a verification call. Besides authenticating the information, information about the platform and the concept is imparted to the user.
About Venture Catalysts
Venture Catalysts is India’s first integrated incubator. It invests $250K – $1.5 Million in early stage startups that have potential to create enduring value for over a long period of time. Venture Catalysts brings a lethal combination of Capital, Mentoring and Business Network to help investee companies to succeed. Their innovation provides value to startups through its extensive angel network, funding, community, services and co-working facility.
About Keiretsu Forum
Keiretsu Forum is a network of individual investors, funds, corporate entities and family offices looking to invest in early-stage companies. It allows members to work together on selecting deals and investing, with a view that the collective knowledge of the community can lead to better investment outcomes.
Started in Silicon Valley in 2000, it is now one of the most active early-stage investor networks in the world with 56 chapters spread across more than 20 countries on four continents. According to Pitchbook, Keiretsu Forum funded 196 early-stage companies in 2019, by far the most by any investor network.
About LetsVenture
LetsVenture is India's most active platform for startup fundraising and has enabled $200 M in fundraises for 250 startups in the past 6 years. With its cap table & ESOP management software - MyStartupEquity, and growth-stage investment platform LetsVenture Plus, LV is today a complete private market platform for founders and investors alike.